National Council Communication - May 2011
From AFSWiki
According to the calendar next to my desk, Spring started several weeks ago. On average the weather may be like spring, but one day it's warm and sunny and the next it's cold and rainy - that's the problem with averages, they ignore the highs and lows.
Volunteering is like that, too. We have highs - when we get to interact with a new group of hosted students in mid-August or when we see the anticipation in the faces of the outbound students at a PDO and the relief in the faces of their parents when they realize that their children will be well cared for by such a great group of volunteers. But we also have lows - when we have a few more students yet to place and the 3-week deadline is fast approaching, or when one of those placements we were sure was going to work out is not going as well as we would have liked.
One of the National Council goals for 2010-2011 (see National Council 2010 Goals) reads “Clarify and codify the responsibilities of, and the relationships between, the National Council, Board of Directors, National Council Committees and Task Forces, Advisory Groups and the National Volunteer Assembly, and communicate them to our volunteers.” We have made some good progress on this goal (a high), but we're not done just yet (a low).
What's happened so far?
In the fall a committee (under the leadership of the Nominations and Goverance Committee of the National Council and working with the Nominations Committee of the AFS-USA Board of Directors) put together a preliminary RACI chart (see [1] for a definition) listing all the composite duties/processes of the Board, the National Council, and the NVA. We then surveyed all the members of the National Council to get their input on who we felt should be the accountable group for each of these processes. While we had a good level of agreement on many of the items, there are others where it is not so clear. We are still working through the resolution of those where we do not have consensus. The final results will be posted in the Wiki when our work is completed.
In addition, the AFS-USA Board of Directors requested that the NVA be responsible for electing three field volunteers to the board (one each year for a three-year term) and that the National Council also elect a representative to the board. These elections took place at the NVA in April. Since the National Council chair and the immediate past National Council chair are already ex-officio members of the board, this means that up to six directors on the board (1/3 of the authorized number of directors) will be ones who have first-hand knowledge of what all the volunteers in AFS-USA are involved in. This is an important step for AFS-USA and will greatly strengthen the ties between the Board of Directors, the National Council and the NVA and help us work closer together.
In addition to the above progress, the National Council recognized that the communications function was more broad-reaching than could be addressed by a National Council committee. Accordingly, they authorized the formation of a Communications Exchange Advisory Group that could address communications on a broader basis. The CEAG (pronounced "cage") ran an educational session at the NVA in April. One of the new documents made available for that educational session was a pictoral representation which showed the Staff organization, the corresponding Advisory Groups, the National Council and its Committees and Task Forces, and the NVA and its Committees. A copy of this is available on the Wiki here --> AFS Organization Visual.
Interested in knowing more?
The National Council has responsibility for this area and is supported primarily by the Nominations & Governance Committee. This is the committee who among other things reviews and updates National Council and NVA by-laws, works with the volunteer nomination process and looks for possible conflict or duplication in committee and advisory goals. If you are interested in learning more please contact the National Council at NationalCouncil@afsusa.org or the Nominations and Governance Committee at nominations@afsusa.org.
Al Russell, National Council Volunteer Representative, DelMarPa Team
